ARK ARKHIPPO II bumper case for iPhone 4 / 4S review

Jason Tsay Dec 27, 2011 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Accessories, Apple, Exclusive, Okay Geek Review, Reviews, iPhone

You’re probably wondering, “What the heck is that huge thing around your iPhone?” Well, we would like to proudly introduce you to our new friend, the ARKHIPPO II bumper case. Compatible with the iPhone 4 and 4S, this case is one of the most interesting designs you’ll ever find and that has actually made it to the product stage. Boasting excellent drop protection and self standing stand capabilities, how does the ARKHIPPO II perform as a case?

Features

• maximum protection
• reversible
• free standing

Our Impressions

The ARKHIPPO II comes in a simple plastic box with foam surrounding the bumper. The packaging touts three main features - drop protection, reversibility, and stand.

We don’t really know how to even begin to describe the ARKHIPPO II case. Perhaps you’ve seen the first generation case from the company? Well, the II is an equally comical and equally large case although this time around, it’s a bumper style case. Probably a better way to describe it would be “a huge trapezoid brick of tough but flexible polymer material.” Due to the sheer amount of material around the iPhone, this bumper protects pretty well against drops; we’re not saying you should go around throwing your iPhone at the ground but the ARKHIPPO II would definitely help in such a scenario. We had quite a bit of difficultly trying to stuff the ARKHIPPO II in our pants pockets so we’re not sure if you’d want take it out of the house either.

The surface of the ARKHIPPO II is textured for extra grip and actually feels pretty good in the hand despite its rectangular nature. The ARKHIPPO II feels even better when you’ve got two hands gripping the sides, particularly while typing or playing a game in landscape orientation. The switches and buttons can be a little hard to access because the border on the ARKHIPPO II is in fact very thick. The one benefit to this design however, is that the speakers are somewhat amplified by the sloping edge of the cutout. We’ve talked about how well the bumper protects against drops but the other main feature of the ARKHIPPO II is that it can stand by itself and function as a stand. This can be particularly useful whether you’re on a FaceTime call or watching a movie. In fact, we think it’s more realistic to use the ARKHIPPO II as a dedicated stand and only sometimes as an iPhone case.

Overall

The ARKHIPPO II is one of the coolest and most creative iPhone cases we’ve seen in a long time but we can’t say the idea is super practical for most people who are just looking for a something to protect their iPhones. Simply due to the comical size, it isn’t something that you can realistically carry around all day. However, the ARKHIPPO II is simply excellent as a stand for video watching or even as a gaming case so we’d definitely recommend it if you want a dedicated case for those purposes.

Pro’s

• creative design
• excellent video stand
• great shock absorption

Con’s

• too large to carry around

Where to buy

ARK — MSRP: $29.00

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This review was done by Jason Tsay, who was provided the ARKHIPPO II by ARK.